


let’s find some ghosts

by Vulpeculate



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M, late night study sessions can get to your head
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26515957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vulpeculate/pseuds/Vulpeculate
Summary: - it’s 3 am and I’m still in the library studying for finals and I’m losing my grip on reality and I think I just saw a ghost- We’re studying in the library and there are two people very obviously fucking in the stacks and we keep sharing embarrassed glances
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	let’s find some ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted on my Tumblr July 15th 2015.

A campus library at three in the morning is a very different place than it is come daytime. The overhead lights seemed brighter; the hum of the Jurassic computers deafening; and the glare of the night librarian even more cutting, if possible. Emma groaned and rubbed at her bespeckled eyes blearily. She looked up at the clock for what had to be the gazillionth time and winced at each happy tick of the second hand that seemed to have no qualms about letting her know exactly how much time she had spent exhausting her bullshitting skills.

The library was almost empty but for herself, the harpy angrily stabbing at her computer keys behind the circulation desk, and a shaggy dark-haired guy who was softly snoring on his arm two tables away. Emma rolled her eyes in his general direction for her own benefit but absently considered how comfortable a pillow her own arm would make. She stopped that train of thought before it could leave the station and shook her head, messy curls bouncing around her shoulders. With a crack of the neck and a scrunch of the nose, she set to work at actively staring at the final blank page of her document, willing words to appear so she might hit the length requirement and find the sweet release of sleep.

According to the utilitarian philosophy peaosple ahad thandansk

As Emma’s eyes blurred and drooped, her fingers ceased to function. Fighting for consciousness, Emma vaguely noticed the sleeping student wake with a curse. Suddenly, a strange sound came from the stacks. Her eyes went wide, and her heart went still. She heard it again; a bump, a shuffle, a book hitting the floor, perhaps?

Perhaps she should get to bed.

She removed her glasses and cleaned them with her sleeve. Before she could replace them, however, she glimpsed a pale shape emerge from a shelf across the room, and then dart back behind it.

Emma Nolan was a reasonable person. An intelligent one. Despite her parents’ quiet belief in magic and otherworldly things, she remained a skeptic. Of course, that was coherent, daytime Emma. Three AM Emma’s blood was mostly caffeine by now, and the stacks were not lit, and dammit she’d been writing this goddamn paper for months and she was not going to crack now-

There it was again, that noise.

Replacing her glasses, she glanced over to where the guy was sitting with his nose deep in an economics textbook. If he had seen the shape, he did not give any indication.

“Hey!” she whisper-shouted at him with the fevered excitement one only gets with intoxication, sleep deprivation, or having seen Ghostbusters one too many times and being in a situation like this one.

He glanced up at her, one eyebrow raised in question. “Yes?”

At that moment, another sound came from behind the stacks. It was a soft huff, followed by a grunt. Emma waved towards it. “That. Did you hear that?”

To her surprise, he blushed and looked down with a wry sort of grimace. When he said nothing she continued on, her sleep-addled brain fogging up her common sense and refusing to show her the obvious. C’mon, Emma wake up wake up wake up. “Well? It could like, a ghost, right? Isn’t this building supposed to be haunted or something?”

The guy looked away from her, one hand rising to cover what suspiciously looked like the start of a grin. “Sure, love. Maybe. You could always go check it out if you are that concerned about the wellbeing of agriculture non-fiction.”

Emma glared at him. His admittedly charming face was a picture of innocence, and yet his eyes betrayed his amusement with the situation. Even his fluidly accented voice was thick with humor. Bastard. “Fine. I will.” She stood from her chair with a stubborn rise of her chin, making sure to bump into his table as she walked by. His grin turned into a legitimate smile before he realized where she was headed.

“Oh no no no, lass, that’s not actually a good idea,” he lept out of his chair, his words punctuated by an odd repetitive creaking sound. Emma opened her mouth to retort but he cut her off. “I was joking, honestly. C’mon love, you can’t be that daft.”

“Daft? Seriously?!” She took a haughty step towards his towering frame. “Look, mister-”

“Jones.”

“Alright, Mr. Jones, obviously you’re just mocking me and trying to piss me off and I realize that there isn’t a ghost back there but there could be something and you don’t know any more than I do and it’s three o’clock in the fucking morning and I really just want to go to sleep but I can’t because I have to finish this fucking paper and I really don’t need you to-” 

It was probably best she was cut off here since she didn’t even think her mouth would be able to form the best words to tell the infuriating guy off. Thankfully, someone else’s mouth worked well enough to fill the air with a long, breathy moan.

Emma’s face flashed white, then scarlet. A rush of disgust and embarrassment flooded through her, while the Accented Asshole just stood there with a face contorted into silent laughter.

“Oh my god,” she groaned and winced when the mystery voice from behind the stacks unknowingly echoed her with vigor. Accented Asshole was shaking with suppressed laughter at this point. She had the overwhelming urge to punch him in his stupid face.

“I’m Killian,” the guy managed through gasps. Emma watched as a disheveled couple crept out from behind the bookshelf, looking sheepish and smugly satisfied all at once. “Killian Jones. And I’d be delighted to go ghost hunting any time you’d like, love.”

(After smacking him on the arm so hard she felt it, Emma sat down and enlisted Killian into helping her finish the last few paragraphs of the paper that had been eluding her for hours. As he leaned closer to her to clearly read the words she had chosen, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to take this guy into the stacks and do some Ghostbuster level shit.)

(A few months later, she found out.)


End file.
